Battery Trick

There seems to be lots of discussions on Battery life, so i did a test myself. I was getting about the same battery life as everybody else, about 6-7 hours with moderate usage. Which is what all the beta testers were getting pre release. I thought i would give something a try. First of all, when I picked up the phone it was about 75% charged. I charged it to 100%, and let it go down to about 30% that first day and then charged it. I followed this everyday for the first week, and was still getting the same battery life out of it. I never allowed the device to completly drain and shut off. Well i gave that a shot, and what did i find, My battery is lasting much longer, like doubled. So give this a try. I let the phone die, completely die so it shuts off. Then charge it 100% overnight. Worked for me, dont know if it will work for you, but give it a shot.

Its not a trick so much as it is a generally accepted break-in practice for new batteries. FWIW, keep an eye out for the Seidio extended battery for the DRIOD. I have a 2100mA extended battery, with cover, for my Moto that litteally lasts 40% longer than the stock 1500mA.

In general, it's not a good practice to let the battery be drained completely during each use cycle; Li-ion batteries do not like to be kept discharged and warm/hot at the same time at all, and they don't like being kept fully charged for long, especially at elevated temperatures (which is any temperature over ambient)--that's why they are shipped typically at a 40-50% SOC. However, you may do a full discharge/recharge cycle from time to time, maybe every one or two weeks, to recalibrate the battery status gauge.

In general, Li-ion batteries last longest during partial (swing) charge/discharge cycling around the 50% state-of-charge point (SOC), plus/minus 20-30 % SOC. NASA (and other) tests performed to qualify Li-ion batteries for satellite applications showed that using such swing cycling around the 50% SOC point can increase the battery life 5-10 times.